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Both David Fitzpatrick and Jared Hodgkiss have signed for Macclesfield. I hoped one of them at least would be returning to Plainmoor.

tomogull wrote: ↑09 Jun 2017, 23:54 Both David Fitzpatrick and Jared Hodgkiss have signed for Macclesfield. I hoped one of them at least would be returning to Plainmoor.

Macclesfield have a defender called David Fitzpatrick. Not the same person as the player we loaned from AFC Wimbledon. Unless they have two David Fitzpatrick's now?

Yeahhhh I cant see anything for a new signing called Fitzpatrick on Macclesfield Town's twitter..

The Macclesfield David Fitzpatrick is the "other" one - 27 year old ex Southport defender, as opposed to the 22 year old ex Wimbledon winger we had on loan (although Soccerbase has got them a bit confused as well tbf)

What budget limitations. We have only managed to sign one new player. To be honest the present situation appears a rerun of our 'we are signing people' - who never appear - situation of the winter months.

The club is clearly going to have to sign players in order to have a team but the big, big question is what ability and quality are these, as yet, unknowns going to be?

Whilst I understand the need to have been patient through the month of May as we are no longer a club that has the sort of budget to compete with the "big boys" in this League, I too am beginning to get a little frustrated at the lack of progress on the signings front. As it stands, we have a "squad" of just SIX players and we are still "waiting on" decisions from both Moore and Richards - who should have given us an answer by last weekends deadline. Plenty of Managers I can think of who would have moved on from them by now, insisting that what is the point of making an offer with a time limit on it if you are simply going to allow things to drift without insisting on a decision being made. Meanwhile, we are still without a goalkeeper at the club, while others are being signed elsewhere!

The reality is that the players return to pre season training, just two weeks on Wednesday and our first friendly is less than a week after that! To complete the bare minimum of a suitable size squad of 16 players, we need to sign ten players in the next EIGHT weeks although if we are in any way serious about competing at this level, we would realistically need more like 12, but preferably say 14 - in order to make a 20 man squad, a sensible size of squad to be operating with at this level. That is an awful lot of recruiting to be done, in a relatively short space of time. Of course it can be done as we saw what Paul Cox had to do two summers back, when he pretty much built a squad up from a similar position.

But my concern is that we may be about to see a return to those days when we have 10, 15, or more trialists turn up at pre season training - just in the hope that we may unearth a few "rough diamonds" together with a few "squad fillers" prepared to play for peanuts. We should also not forget that most of those "rushed" signings by Cox didn't work out, with perhaps just Smith and Butler, and to a lesser extent Marsh and Hurst, being decent signings but as for the rest (Spiess, Geohaghon, Carmichael, Fenwick, Murombedzi, Bell, Heslop, Lavelle-Moore, Fisher, Fairhurst etc) .... they had all left by the following summer if memory serves me right, most quite a bit sooner! So, as proved to be the case under Cox, that sort of preparation is not ideal, far better to be working with your starting XI (or close to it) as early as you can be in pre season so that you are fully ready for the new League to kick off on the 5th August.

So, over to you Nicho ..... FOURTEEN signings in EIGHT weeks .... and we can all go into the new season feeling that we are ready and better prepared for a more successful season ahead of us than the last two dreadful ones!!!!!!

most of the clubs seem to make signings daily except for us, as for Moore and Richards if they are stalling then let them go, Richards wont be missed as he can easily be replaced, Moore will be harder to replace as I don't think there are to many decent keepers out there at this level.
ITS shame that Dorchester can sign a keeper of Chris Weales calibre and we haven't even got one, maybe he persuade Robba to come back as number 1.

I don't think Robba had the physical presence or distribution for this level.

There are a lot of young keepers out there that do have these qualities.

Dan Lavercombe was on loan at Rhyl in wales last season and although he may want to fight up the ladder at Wigan this season, it may be worth seeing if he is an option.

Lavercombe would be good , better for him rather than playing for Rhyl.

Jeff wrote: ↑10 Jun 2017, 05:17 The Macclesfield David Fitzpatrick is the "other" one - 27 year old ex Southport defender, as opposed to the 22 year old ex Wimbledon winger we had on loan (although Soccerbase has got them a bit confused as well tbf)

Ah, thanks for that, Jeff. It doesn't take much for me to get confused nowadays, so it's good to know Soccerbase also got confused !

understand that three little piglets but I would hope that with his coaching at wigan things have improved, saying that I hope Moore signs but I don't think the club should wait if the player is holding out, Either sign or have the decency to say no thanks.
the players these days haven't got a clue about the real world.

Zippy wrote: ↑10 Jun 2017, 18:09 understand that three little piglets but I would hope that with his coaching at wigan things have improved, saying that I hope Moore signs but I don't think the club should wait if the player is holding out, Either sign or have the decency to say no thanks.
the players these days haven't got a clue about the real world.

Players granted in the top leagues have lost sense of reality. But conference players TBH earn what most of us earn. So if you can battle out an extra 100 quid a week that's feasible. I agree though that Moore and Richards are walking a tightrope, personally get rid as they now showing disrespect.

The thought of Lavercombe coming back brings visions of crosses floating into goal, more Fred Karno defending and prolongued struggle.

He's ended up at fekin' Rhyl for God's sake; doesn't that suggest something?